Safety box toe



Aug. 21, 1951 w.'w. SOMERSALL SAFETY BOX TOE Filed March 11, 1948 INVENTOR.

BY K Why/hwy Patented Aug. 21, 1951 SAFETY BOX TOE William Warren Somersa'll, 'Natick,"Mass.,as-

Manufacturing Company,

signor to Beckwith Dover, N. H., a corpora tion of New Hampshire Application March 11, 1948, Serial No. 14,201

1 Claim.

This invention comprises a new and improved metal toe box for use in safety shoes to protect the toes of the wearer from injury.

Toe boxes for safety shoes have been heretofore constructed of a single ply of sheet steel and as so constructed have been useful and effective up to a certain degree. However, they have not in all cases been sufficiently strong or sufiiciently stable in the shoe to safeguard the wearer against all danger of having his toes crushed by heavy metal objects falling thereon. Moreover, where explosion hazards exist, damage has been caused by striking a spark from a steel box. There is, moreover, a practical limit to the thickness of a single ply steel sheet that can be conveniently formed into a toe box, and the weight of the steel box that can be comfortably worn by the wearer.

I have discovered that this problem may be solved, and a metal toe box of superior strength and resistance to crushing and of moderate weight may be constructed by employing two plies of sheet metal of moderate thickness, connecting these plies permanently but in such fashion that they may shift on each other to some extent in their unconnected areas and particularly in the marginal portions of the box where it is desired to form an inturned marginal flange. This not only facilitates the operation of molding a strong two-ply box but permits the formation of a single ply flange. It will be apparent that substantially greater strength and thickness of metal is required in the dome-shaped body of the box than in its marginal flange. When my novel two-ply construction is employed, the edge of one ply may be drawn inwardly in advance of the edge of the other ply and thus may be formed a marginal flange approximately only one-half the thickness of the body of the box.

Another advantage of the present invention is that, if desired, an outer ply of non-ferrous metal, such as bronze, may be combined with an inner steel ply. Thus is provided a composite box in which the necessary strength of structure is supplied largely by an inner steel layer, and a protective non-sparking and reinforcing shell is supplied by an outer non-ferrous ply.

These and other features of the invention will be best understood and appreciated from the following description of a preferred embodiment thereof, selected for purposes of illustration and shown in the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figs. 1 and 2 are plan views of the metal blanks from which the plies of the box may be formed,

Fig. 3 is a view in perspective of the blanks superposed and spot welded together,

Fig. 4 is a plan view of the completed box, and

Fig. 5 is a view in rear elevation.

The blanks which are to be incorporated in the finished two-ply box may be died out or otherwise shaped from sheet metal of any desired or selected thickness. For example, the blank 10 shown in Fig. 1 is died out from sheet copper or bronze .010 to .040 inch in thickness. The blank ll may be similarly died out from sheet steel of the same thickness. The blanks l0 and i I herein shown are represented as being of substantially the same size and thickness, although it would be within the scope of the invention to make the non-ferrous blank H] for the outer ply substantially thinner than the steel blank I l for the inner ply.

Having provided the flat blanks l0 and H, these are now superposed and connected. A preferred manner of connecting the blanks is to spot weld them in spaced areas l2 adjacent to the rear straighter edge of the blanks which is to form the arched rear edge of the finished box. Blanks welded in this manner are maintained with their rear edges fixed in permanent relation, whereas they are left free to shift upon each other in their unwelded coextensive areas during theforming operation.

The superposed and welded blanks l0 and H are now molded to final shape corresponding substantially to the toe portion of a last between cooperating dies properly shaped for that purpose. In the molding operation the blanks are given a dome-shaped body portion having a rear or transverse arched edge shown herein as being substantially straight but not necessarily so. The marginal portion of the box is molded inwardly and in this operation the material of one of the plies, for example the inner ply H, is drawn inwardly substantially beyond the margin of the outer ply Ill and shaped as an inturned marginal flange l3. This extends continuously about the curved marginal edge of the box and in the finished shoe is usually tucked beneath the insole.

It is within the scope of the invention to use either steel or a non-ferrous metal for the outer blank [0. In some cases, however, it may be necessary to secure the two blanks together by methods other than welding. For example, copper or bronze clad steel may be employed, that is to say, a composite sheet produced by hot rolling in which the component plies are united by an interalloyed bond. Or alternatively the two blanks may be drilled and riveted together at points l2, leaving the rivet heads flush with the inner and outer surfaces of the finished box. In either case the non-ferrous ply will be located outermost in the metal box.

Having thus disclosed my invention and described in detail several embodiments thereof I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent:

A metal toe box comprising an inner and an outer ply of sheet metal disposed in face-to-face contact and presenting a dome-shaped body and an arched transverse edge, the inner of said plies merging into a marginal inturned flange which extends continuously about the peripheral edge of the box and inwardly beyond the edge of the 15 outer ply.

W. WARREN SOMERSALL.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,954,677 McMurray et a1. Apr. 10, 1934 FOREIGN PATENTS 10 Number Country Date 18,135 Great Britain Sept. 14, 1889 105,481 Australia Oct. 12, 1938 

